The last half of the 20th century witnessed explosive growth in science and technology in the developed world, including extraordinary developments in medicine. As medicine's capacity and complexity has grown, so has the popular sense that health care is a right and that the political system should deliver the care. Today, political systems grapple with every imaginable facet of health and health care, from educating and regulating the health workforce to creating systems to pay for the cost of care; from setting and funding the biomedical research agenda to determining who gets what care, when; from clinical preventive services to broader agendas for promoting population health. Although many of these questions seem economic in nature, they are inescapably political questions regarding the authoritative allocation of resources in response to the contention of values and ideas.

This major reference collection shines a bright light on health politics. The editors have organized and introduced some of the best of the canon of health politics literature in four volumes covering political analysis of the emergence and shape of health systems, public perceptions of government's responsibility to assure the delivery of care, health care in a comparative perspective, and the politics of health reform.

Volume 1: Defining Health Systems - Path Dependence and Policy Emergence contains articles that emphasize critical perspectives on the development of given health system structures, with particular attention to the choices, and the paths that led to those choices, in favour of systems driven by private sectors (such as that of the United States) and systems that are more explicitly public (such as the European systems).

Volume 2: Tensions in Health Policy - Ethics, Interests, and the Public treats health and health care broadly, including considerations of questions about the meaning of assertions to a "right" to health, the role of prevention in individual and public health, and contentious health care questions such as those surrounding stem cell research and reproductive rights.

Volume 3: Health Systems in Comparative Perspective includesarticles that illustrate global differences in the politics and policy of health care.

Volume 4: the Contemporary Politics of Health System Reform examines the politics of health reform, including articles that address reform proposals as the sources of political conflict they inevitably are.

Social Movements as Catalysts for Policy Change: The case of smoking and guns

Constance Nathanson

Determining the public good

Between Welfare Medicine and Mainstream Entitlement: Medicaid at a political crossroads

Colleen Grogan and Erik Patashnik

Uses and Abuses of Long-Term Medicare Cost Estimates

Joseph White

Leading the Health Policy Orchestra: The need for an intergovernmental partnership

Michael Sparer

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Sue Tolleson-Rinehart

Sue Tolleson-Rinehart is the Assistant Chair for Faculty Development in the Department of Pediatrics in School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and also an adjunct member of the UNC Political Science department. A political scientist who built a national reputation in gender politics scholarship before adding health politics and policy to her teaching and research interests, she has authored, co-authored, or edited three books and numerous articles in gender politics, including publications on the politics and policy of women's health. She has been the co-Principal Investigator of the UNC Center for Education... More About Author

Mark A. Peterson

Mark A. Peterson is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy, and former Chair of the Department of Public Policy at the School of Public Affairs, University of California, Los Angeles. He is a Faculty Associate of the Center for Health Policy Research, Co-Director of the Policy Core for the Center for HIV Identification, Prevention, and Treatment Services, and on the faculty boards of the Center for American Politics and Public Policy, the Center for Policy Research on Aging, the Center for Society & Genetics, and the Institute for Social Science Research. From 1993 to 2002, he was the Editor of the Journal of Health Politics,... More About Author